Why do unions form peak bodies? The 1885 Brisbane Trades and Labour Council

Abstract

The way in which the first Brisbane Trades and Labour Council formed in 1885 neatly illustrates the veracity of Ellem and Shields' hypothesis on the origins and founding purpose of peak labour bodies. The BTLC emerged from the Eight Hours Movement. Just as this Movement was elitist, exclusivist and wedded to the concept of the benevolent employer and the unity of the interests of capital and labour, so too did the BTLC exhibit these traits. Ellem and Shields' notion of internal and external causal factors, and the importance they place on the intersection of these factors, is, with some moderation in emphasis, a useful tool in understanding the origins of the Brisbane Trades and Labour Council.